German Resource Research Institute (GERRI): Concept and Aims of a Raw Materials Network

The German Resource Research Institute “GERRI” was founded as a virtual institute and a national network in 2015 by five leading German research institutions of the raw materials sector. The founding partners of GERRI - TU Bergakademie Freiberg, RWTH Aachen University, Clausthal University of Technology, Fraunhofer project group materials recycling and resource strategies IWKS at the Fraunhofer Institute ISC and the Helmholtz-Institute Freiberg for Resource Technolo-gy (HIF) at the HZDR – offer broad knowledge and experience in the following fields of expertise: exploration & mining, processing, hydrometallurgy, pyrometallurgy, materials, waste management, machinery, modeling and special analytics. The main goal of GERRI is to strengthen transdiscipli-nary research along the entire value chain of mineral metalliferous and raw materials. Furthermore, GERRI is intended to become a central nucleus for innovation between politics, industry and aca-demic research.
GERRI´s unique feature of GERRI is competence mapping, which bundles the available knowledge and experience within all competence fields of this network. There methods and processes of tech-nical infrastructure are directly linked to relevant elements of periodic table and material flows.
GERRI is embedded in the "Research for Sustainable Development (FONA)" program of the Ger-man Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), which is part of the funding program "r4 - Innovative Technologies for Resource Efficiency - Research on the Provision of Economic Strate-gic Raw Materials". After the expiry of the five-year funding period, GERRI is envisioned to persist independently as a network and will be financed, amongst others, by industrial and research funds.